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Professional Development

by: Kazim Ladimeji It used to be that all employees would, at some point or another, have to consider a tough question: “Is my useful life as a worker coming to an end, and is it time to move into management to make something of my career?” In truth, however, this question may be on its way out. Moving into…

Do young people view entrepreneurship as a viable career option? Not according to a recent analysis by The Wall Street Journal that showed that only 3.6 percent of households headed by adults younger than 30 owned stakes in private companies. This figure represents a 24-year-low in young entrepreneurs. While media reports glamorize successful entrepreneurs such…

by: Kazim Ladimeji It’s a great feeling to get that call or email from a headhunter who has contacted you about an opportunity — particularly when it’s a tailor-made opportunity designed to attract you. It’s extremely flattering and a ringing endorsement of your performance and career to date. Being on a headhunter’s radar can lead to a…

by: Noelle Murphy In 2012, OfficeTeam asked 500 HR managers about their use of video technology in the interviewing process. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they use video “very often” in the interviewing process, and a further 10 percent said they use video “somewhat often.” As video interviewing becomes more and more prevalent, interviewees must learn to adapt to this new…

by: Liz Ryan For years we talked about our Skills. We said “I have negotiation skills, administrative skills and strategic skills.” We claimed a whole bunch of skills, but what are skills, really? Who can say whether you have those skills? When someone tells me s/he has great Negotiation Skills, I immediately wonder whether the person…

by: Matthew Kosinski The baby boomers are coming of age — retirement age, that is: roughly 10,000 of them retire every day. But not every baby boomer hits 65 and decides it’s time to bow out of the workforce. Some baby boomers — 10 percent of them — don’t want to retire at all. They’d rather stay…

by: Kazim Ladimeji I’d like to turn the resume-tailoring paradigm on its head a little. We all know that employers are turned off by generic resumes that don’t appear to be specific to the company or post to which a candidate is applying. Employers see these resumes as signs that a candidate has put no thought into their application. This…

by: David DeLong Many skilled jobs require a considerable amount of learning while doing, but learning requirements have reached unrealistic levels in many roles and work situations today. This phenomenon of “too much to learn” is not only feeding the perception of critical skills shortages in many sectors, but it can also accelerate burnout. Consider this:…

by: Kazim Ladimeji We often associate “bad references” with “being fired,” but job seekers may fear bad references from former employers for a number of reasons: perhaps the job seeker had a poor relationship with their manager, or perhaps they left the company under less-than-ideal circumstances. There are two sides to every story, but references are categorically one-sided: a job seeker’s potential…

by: Allison VanNest It’s no secret that speaking a second language is a good thing. Maria Konnikova, writing for The New Yorker, claims that “the words that we have at our disposal affect what we see — and the more words there are, the better our perception. When we learn to speak a different language, we…